Half-Bads in White Regalia
- Author: Cody Caetabo (Canada)
- Book type: memoir
- Publisher: And Other Stories
- Released: March 3, 2026
- Length: 288 pages
- Format: paperback / ebook
- Prize: £ 14.99
- Order book from: Amazon / Bol
Cody Caetano Half-Bads in White Regalia reviews
- “Caetano’s voice leaps off the page with a rhythmic, hip-hop style right from the first page … It gives this memoir energy and descriptive heft.” (Toronto Star)
- “Cody Caetano spins a tale much like other Ojibway storytellers. Rich in metaphor, plot, and some very serious comedy, he keeps the reader attending to the writing.” (Lee Maracle)
Blurb of the Cody Caetano memoir
The Caetanos move into a doomed house in the highway village of Happyland before an inevitable divorce pulls Cody’s parents in separate directions. His mom, Mindimooye, having discovered her Anishinaabe birth family and Sixties Scoop origin story, embarks on a series of fraught relationships and fresh starts. His dad, O Touro, a Portuguese immigrant and drifter, falls back into “big do, little think” behaviour, despite his best intentions.
Left alone at the house in Happyland, Cody and his siblings must fend for themselves, even as the pipes burst and the lights go out. His protective big sister, Kris, finds inventive ways to put food on the table, and his stoic big brother, Julian, facilitates his regular escapes into the world of video games. As life yanks them from one temporary solution to the next, they steal moments of joy and resist buckling under “baddie” temptations aplenty.
Capturing the chaos and wonder of a precarious childhood, Cody Caetano delivers a fever dream coming-of-age garnished with a slang all his own. Half-Bads in White Regalia is an unforgettable debut that unspools a tangled family history with warmth, humour, and deep generosity.
Cody Caetano is a writer of Anishinaabe and Portuguese descent and an off-reserve member of Pinaymootang First Nation. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto, where he wrote this memoir under the mentorship of Lee Maracle. Excerpts of Half-Bads in White Regalia earned him a 2020 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose.